A	>>	B	>>	C	>>	D	>>	E
F	>>	G	>>	H	>>	I	>>	J
K	>>	L	>>	M	>>	N	>>	O
P	>>	R	>>	S	>>	T	>>	U
V	>>	W	>>			X	>>	Z

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - "Die Leiden des jungen Werther Buch 2"

Wilkie Collins - "Armadale"

Unknown - "Project Gutenberg surfs with a modem donated by Supra."

Rudyard Kipling - "American Notes"

Flying U Ranch

B >> B. M. Bower >> Flying U Ranch



This etext was prepared by Anthony Matonak.





FLYING U RANCH BY B. M. BOWER




CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. The Coming of a Native Son
II. "When Greek Meets Greek"
III. Bad News
IV. Some Hopes
V. Sheep
VI. What Happened to Andy
VII. Truth Crushed to Earth, etc.
VIII. The Dot Outfit
IX. More Sheep
X. The Happy Family Herd Sheep
XI. Weary Unburdens
XII. Two of a Kind
XIII. The Happy Family Learn Something
XIV. Happy Jack
XV. Oleson
XVI. The End of the Dots
XVII. Good News



FLYING U RANCH



CHAPTER I. The Coming of a Native Son

The Happy Family, waiting for the Sunday supper call, were
grouped around the open door of the bunk-house, gossiping idly of
things purely local, when the Old Man returned from the Stock
Association at Helena; beside him on the buggy seat sat a
stranger. The Old Man pulled up at the bunk-house, the stranger
sprang out over the wheel with the agility which bespoke youthful
muscles, and the Old Man introduced him with a quirk of the lips:

"This is Mr. Mig-u-ell Rapponi, boys--a peeler straight from the
Golden Gate. Throw out your war-bag and make yourself to home,
Mig-u-ell; some of the boys'll show you where to bed down."

The Old Man drove on to the house with his own luggage, and Happy
Jack followed to take charge of the team; but the remainder of
the Happy Family unobtrusively took the measure of the foreign
element. From his black-and-white horsehair hatband, with tassels
that swept to the very edge of his gray hatbrim, to the crimson
silk neckerchief draped over the pale blue bosom of his shirt;
from the beautifully stamped leather cuffs, down to the
exaggerated height of his tan boot-heels, their critical eyes
swept in swift, appraising glances; and unanimous disapproval was
the result. The Happy Family had themselves an eye to picturesque
garb upon occasion, but this passed even Pink's love of display.

"He's some gaudy to look at," Irish murmured under his breath to
Cal Emmett.

"All he lacks is a spot-light and a brass band," Cal returned, in
much the same tone with which a woman remarks upon a last
season's hat on the head of a rival.

Miguel was not embarrassed by the inspection. He was tall,
straight, and swarthily handsome, and he stood with the
complacence of a stage favorite waiting for the applause to cease
so that he might speak his first lines; and, while he waited, he
sifted tobacco into a cigarette paper daintily, with his little
finger extended. There was a ring upon that finger; a ring with a
moonstone setting as large and round as the eye of a startled
cat, and the Happy Family caught the pale gleam of it and drew a
long breath. He lighted a match nonchalantly, by the artfully
simple method of pinching the head of it with his fingernails,
leaned negligently against the wall of the bunk-house, and
regarded the group incuriously while he smoked.

"Any pretty girls up this way?" he inquired languidly, after a
moment, fanning a thin smoke-cloud from before his face while he
spoke.

The Happy Family went prickly hot. The girls in that neighborhood
were held in esteem, and there was that in his tone which gave
offense.

"Sure, there's pretty girls here!" Big Medicine bellowed
unexpectedly, close beside him. "We're all of us engaged to `em,
by cripes!"

Miguel shot an oblique glance at Big Medicine, examined the end
of his cigarette, and gave a lift of shoulder, which might mean
anything or nothing, and so was irritating to a degree. He did
not pursue the subject further, and so several belated retorts
were left tickling futilely the tongues of the Happy Family--
which does not make for amiability.

To a man they liked him little, in spite of their easy
friendliness with mankind in general. At supper they talked with
him perfunctorily, and covertly sneered because he sprinkled his
food liberally with cayenne and his speech with Spanish words
pronounced with soft, slurred vowels that made them sound
unfamiliar, and against which his English contrasted sharply with
its crisp, American enunciation. He met their infrequent glances
with the cool stare of absolute indifference to their opinion of
him, and their perfunctory civility with introspective calm.

The next morning, when there was riding to be done, and Miguel
appeared at the last moment in his working clothes, even Weary,
the sunny-hearted, had an unmistakable curl of his lip after the
first glance.

Miguel wore the hatband, the crimson kerchief tied loosely with
the point draped over his chest, the stamped leather cuffs and
the tan boots with the highest heels ever built by the cobbler
craft. Also, the lower half of him was incased in chaps the like
of which had never before been brought into Flying U coulee.
Black Angora chaps they were; long-haired, crinkly to the very
hide, with three white, diamond-shaped patches running down each
leg of them, and with the leather waistband stamped elaborately
to match the cuffs. The bands of his spurs were two inches wide
and inlaid to the edge with beaten silver, and each concho was
engraved to represent a large, wild rose, with a golden center. A
dollar laid upon the rowels would have left a fringe of prongs
all around.

He bent over his sacked riding outfit, and undid it, revealing a
wonderful saddle of stamped leather inlaid on skirt and cantle
with more beaten silver. He straightened the skirts, carefully
ignoring the glances thrown in his direction, and swore softly to
himself when he discovered where the leather had been scratched
through the canvas wrappings and the end of the silver scroll
ripped up. He drew out his bridle and shook it into shape, and
the silver mountings and the reins of braided leather with
horsehair tassels made Happy Jack's eyes greedy with desire. His
blanket was a scarlet Navajo, and his rope a rawhide lariat.

Altogether, his splendor when he was mounted so disturbed the
fine mental poise of the Happy Family that they left him jingling
richly off by himself, while they rode closely grouped and
discussed him acrimoniously.

"By gosh, a man might do worse than locate that Native Son for a
silver mine," Cal began, eyeing the interloper scornfully. "It's
plumb wicked to ride around with all that wealth and fussy stuff.
He must 'a' robbed a bank and put the money all into a riding
outfit."

"By golly, he looks to me like a pair uh trays when he comes
bow-leggin' along with them white diamonds on his legs," Slim
stated solemnly.

"And I'll gamble that's a spot higher than he stacks up in the
cow game," Pink observed with the pessimism which matrimony had
given him. "You mind him asking about bad horses, last night?
That Lizzie-boy never saw a bad horse; they don't grow 'em where
he come from. What they don't know about riding they make up for
with a swell rig--"

"And, oh, mamma! It sure is a swell rig!" Weary paid generous
tribute. "Only I will say old Banjo reminds me of an Irish cook
rigged out in silk and diamonds. That outfit on Glory, now--" He
sighed enviously.

"Well, I've gone up against a few real ones in my long and varied
career," Irish remarked reminiscently, "and I've noticed that a
hoss never has any respect or admiration for a swell rig. When he
gets real busy it ain't the silver filigree stuff that's going to
help you hold connections with your saddle, and a silver-mounted
bridle-bit ain't a darned bit better than a plain one."

"Just take a look at him!" cried Pink, with intense disgust.
"Ambling off there, so the sun can strike all that silver and
bounce back in our eyes. And that braided lariat--I'd sure love
to see the pieces if he ever tries to anchor anything bigger than
a yearling!"

"Why, you don't think for a minute he could ever get out and rope
anything, do yuh ?" Irish laughed. "That there Native Son throws
on a-w-l-together too much dog to really get out and do
anything."

"Aw," fleered Happy Jack, "he ain't any Natiff Son. He's a dago!"

"He's got the earmarks uh both," Big Medicine stated
authoritatively. "I know 'em, by cripes, and I know their ways."
He jerked his thumb toward the dazzling Miguel. "I can tell yuh
the kinda cow-puncher he is; I've saw 'em workin' at it. Haw-haw-
haw! They'll start out to move ten or a dozen head uh tame old
cows from one field to another, and there'll be six or eight
fellers, rigged up like this here tray-spot, ridin' along,
important as hell, drivin' them few cows down a lane, with peach
trees on both sides, by cripes, jingling their big, silver spurs,
all wearin' fancy chaps to ride four or five miles down the road.
Honest to grandma, they call that punchin' cows! Oh, he's a
Native Son, all right. I've saw lots of 'em, only I never saw one
so far away from the Promised Land before. That there looks queer
to me. Natiff Sons--the real ones, like him--are as scarce
outside Calyforny as buffalo are right here in this coulee."

"That's the way they do it, all right," Irish agreed. "And then
they'll have a 'rodeo'--"

"Haw-haw-haw!" Big Medicine interrupted, and took up the tale,
which might have been entitled "Some Cowpunching I Have Seen."

"They have them rodeos on a Sunday, mostly, and they invite
everybody to it, like it was a picnic. And there'll be two or
three fellers to every calf, all lit up, like Mig-u-ell, over
there, in chaps and silver fixin's, fussin' around on horseback
in a corral, and every feller trying to pile his rope on the same
calf, by cripes! They stretch 'em out with two ropes--calves,
remember! Little, weenty fellers you could pack under one arm!
Yuh can't blame 'em much. They never have more'n thirty or forty
head to brand at a time, and they never git more'n a taste uh
real work. So they make the most uh what they git, and go in
heavy on fancy outfits. And this here silver-mounted fellow
thinks he's a real cowpuncher, by cripes!"

The Happy Family laughed at the idea; laughed so loud that Miguel
left his lonely splendor and swung over to them, ostensibly to
borrow a match.

"What's the joke?" he inquired languidly, his chin thrust out and
his eyes upon the match blazing at the end of his cigarette.

The Happy Family hesitated and glanced at one another. Then Cal
spoke truthfully.

"You're it," he said bluntly, with a secret desire to test the
temper of this dark-skinned son of the West.

Miguel darted one of his swift glances at Cal, blew out his match
and threw it away.

"Oh, how funny. Ha-ha." His voice was soft and absolutely
expressionless, his face blank of any emotion whatever. He merely
spoke the words as a machine might have done.

If he had been one of them, the Happy Family would have laughed
at the whimsical humor of it. As it was, they repressed the
impulse, though Weary warmed toward him slightly.

"Don't you believe anything this innocent-eyed gazabo tells you,
Mr. Rapponi," he warned amiably. "He's known to be a liar."

"That's funny, too. Ha-ha some more." Miguel permitted a thin
ribbon of smoke to slide from between his lips, and gazed off to
the crinkled line of hills.

"Sure, it is--now you mention it," Weary agreed after a
perceptible pause.

"How fortunate that I brought the humor to your attention,"
drawled Miguel, in the same expressionless tone, much as if he
were reciting a text.

"Virtue is its own penalty," paraphrased Pink, not stopping to
see whether the statement applied to the subject.

"Haw-haw-haw!" roared Big Medicine, quite as irrelevantly.

"He-he-he," supplemented the silver-trimmed one.

Big Medicine stopped laughing suddenly, reined his horse close to
the other, and stared at him challengingly, with his pale,
protruding eyes, while the Happy Family glanced meaningly at one
another. Big Medicine was quite as unsafe as he looked, at that
moment, and they wondered if the offender realized his precarious
situation.

Miguel smoked with the infinite leisure which is a fine art when
it is not born of genuine abstraction, and none could decide
whether he was aware of the unfriendly proximity of Big Medicine.
Weary was just on the point of saying something to relieve the
tension, when Miguel blew the ash gently from his cigarette and
spoke lazily.

"Parrots are so common, out on the Coast, that they use them in
cheap restaurants for stew. I've often heard them gabbling
together in the kettle."

The statement was so ambiguous that the Happy Family glanced at
him doubtfully. Big Medicine's stare became more curious than
hostile, and he permitted his horse to lag a length. It is
difficult to fight absolute passivity. Then Slim, who ever
tramped solidly over the flowers of sarcasm, blurted one of his
unexpected retorts.

"I was just wonderin', by golly, where yuh learnt to talk!"

Miguel turned his velvet eyes sleepily toward the speaker. "From
the boarders who ate those parrots, amigo," he smiled serenely.

At this, Slim--once justly accused by Irish of being a
"single-shot" when it came to repartee--turned purple and dumb.
The Happy Family, forswearing loyalty in their enjoyment of his
discomfiture, grinned and left to Miguel the barren triumph of
the last word.

He did not gain in popularity as the days passed. They tilted
noses at his beautiful riding gear, and would have died rather
than speak of it in his presence. They never gossiped with him of
horses or men or the lands he knew. They were ready to snub him
at a moment's notice--and it did not lessen their dislike of him
that he failed to yield them an opportunity. It is to be hoped
that he found his thoughts sufficient entertainment, since he was
left to them as much as is humanly possible when half a dozen men
eat and sleep and work together. It annoyed them exceedingly that
Miguel did not seem to know that they held him at a distance;
they objected to his manner of smoking cigarettes and staring off
at the skyline as if he were alone and content with his dreams.
When he did talk they listened with an air of weary tolerance.
When he did not talk they ignored his presence, and when he was
absent they criticized him mercilessly.

They let him ride unwarned into an adobe patch one day--at least,
Big Medicine, Pink, Cal Emmett and Irish did, for they were with
him--and laughed surreptitiously together while he wallowed there
and came out afoot, his horse floundering behind him, mud to the
ears, both of them.

"Pretty soft going, along there, ain't it?" Pink commiserated
deceitfully.

"It is, kinda," Miguel responded evenly, scraping the adobe off
Banjo with a flat rock. And the subject was closed.

"Well, it's some relief to the eyes to have the shine taken off
him, anyway," Pink observed a little guiltily afterward.

"I betche he ain't goin' to forget that, though," Happy Jack
warned when he saw the caked mud on Miguel's Angora chaps and
silver spurs, and the condition of his saddle. "Yuh better watch
out and not turn your backs on him in the dark, none uh you guys.
I betche he packs a knife. Them kind always does."

"Haw-haw-haw!" bellowed Big Medicine uproariously. "I'd love to
see him git out an' try to use it, by cripes!"

"I wish Andy was here," Pink sighed. "Andy'd take the starch outa
him, all right."

"Wouldn't he be pickings for old Andy, though? Gee!" Cal looked
around at them, with his wide, baby-blue eyes, and laughed.
"Let's kinda jolly him along, boys, till Andy gets back. It sure
would be great to watch 'em. I'll bet he can jar the eternal calm
outa that Native Son. That's what grinds me worse than his
throwin' on so much dog; he's so blamed satisfied with himself!
You snub him, and he looks at yuh as if you was his hired man--
and then forgets all about yuh. He come outa that 'doby like he'd
been swimmin' a river on a bet, and had made good and was a
hee-ro right before the ladies. Kinda 'Oh, that's nothing to what
I could do if it was worth while,' way he had with him."

"It wouldn't matter so much if he wasn't all front," Pink
complained. "You'll notice that's always the way, though. The
fellow all fussed up with silver and braided leather can't get
out and do anything. I remember up on Milk river--" Pink trailed
off into absorbing reminiscence, which, however, is too lengthy
to repeat here.

"Say, Mig-u-ell's down at the stable, sweatin from every pore
trying to get his saddle clean, by golly!" Slim reported
cheerfully, just as Pink was relighting the cigarette which had
gone out during the big scene of his story. "He was cussin' in
Spanish, when I walked up to him--but he shut up when he seen me
and got that peaceful look uh hisn on his face. I wonder, by
golly--"

"Oh, shut up and go awn," Irish commanded bluntly, and looked at
Pink. "Did he call it off, then? Or did you have to wade in--"

"Naw; he was like this here Native Son--all front. He could look
sudden death, all right; he had black eyes like Mig-u-ell-- but
all a fellow had to do was go after him, and he'd back up so
blamed quick--"

Slim listened that far, saw that he had interrupted a tale
evidently more interesting than anything he could say, and went
off, muttering to himself.



CHAPTER II. "When Greek Meets Greek"

The next morning, which was Sunday, the machinations of Big
Medicine took Pink down to the creek behind the bunk-house.
"What's hurtin' yuh?" he asked curiously, when he came to where
Big Medicine stood in the fringe of willows, choking between his
spasms of mirth.

"Haw-haw-haw!" roared Big Medicine; and, seizing Pink's arm in a
gorilla-like grip, he pointed down the bank.

Miguel, seated upon a convenient rock in a sunny spot, was
painstakingly combing out the tangled hair of his chaps, which he
had washed quite as carefully not long before, as the cake of
soap beside him testified.

"Combing--combing--his chaps, by cripes!" Big Medicine gasped,
and waggled his finger at the spectacle. "Haw-haw-haw! C-
combin'--his--chaps!"

Miguel glanced up at them as impersonally as if they were two
cackling hens, rather than derisive humans, then bent his head
over a stubborn knot and whistled La Paloma softly while he
coaxed out the tangle.

Pink's eyes widened as he looked, but he did not say anything. He
backed up the path and went thoughtfully to the corrals, leaving
Big Medicine to follow or not, as he chose.

"Combin'--his chaps, by cripes!" came rumbling behind him. Pink
turned.

"Say! Don't make so much noise about it," he advised guardedly.
"I've got an idea."

"Yuh want to hog-tie it, then," Big Medicine retorted, resentful
because Pink seemed not to grasp the full humor of the thing.
"Idees sure seems to be skurce in this outfit--or that there
lily-uh-the-valley couldn't set and comb no chaps in broad
daylight, by cripes; not and get off with it."

"He's an ornament to the Flying U," Pink stated dreamily. "Us
boneheads don't appreciate him, is all that ails us. What we
ought to do is--help him be as pretty as he wants to be, and--"

"Looky here, Little One." Big Medicine hurried his steps until he
was close alongside. "I wouldn't give a punched nickel for a
four-horse load uh them idees, and that's the truth." He passed
Pink and went on ahead, disgust in every line of his square-
shouldered figure. "Combin' his chaps, by cripes!" he snorted
again, and straightway told the tale profanely to his fellows,
who laughed until they were weak and watery-eyed as they
listened.

Afterward, because Pink implored them and made a mystery of it,
they invited Miguel to take a hand in a long-winded game--rather,
a series of games--of seven-up, while his chaps hung to dry upon
a willow by the creek bank--or so he believed.

The chaps, however, were up in the white-house kitchen, where
were also the reek of scorched hair and the laughing
expostulations of the Little Doctor and the boyish titter of Pink
and Irish, who were curling laboriously the chaps of Miguel with
the curling tongs of the Little Doctor and those of the Countess
besides.

"It's a shame, and I just hope Miguel thrashes you both for it,"
the Little Doctor told them more than once; but she laughed,
nevertheless, and showed Pink how to give the twist which made of
each lock a corkscrew ringlet. The Countess stopped, with her
dishcloth dangling from one red, bony hand, while she looked.
"You boys couldn't sleep nights if you didn't pester the life
outa somebody," she scolded. "Seems to me I'd friz them diamonds,
if I was goin' to be mean enough to do anything."

"You would, eh?" Pink glanced up at her and dimpled. "I'll find
you a rich husband to pay for that." He straightway proceeded to
friz the diamonds of white.

"Why don't you have a strip of ringlets down each leg, with tight
little curls between?" suggested the Little Doctor, not to be
outdone by any other woman.

"Correct you are," praised Irish.

"And, remember, you're not heating branding-irons, mister man,"
she added. "You'll burn all the hair off, if you let the tongs
get red-hot. Just so they'll sizzle; I've told you five times
already." She picked up the Kid, kissed many times the finger he
held up for sympathy--the finger with which he had touched the
tongs as Pink was putting them back into the grate of the kitchen
stove, and spoke again to ease her conscience. "I think it's
awfully mean of you to do it. Miguel ought to thrash you both."

"We're dead willing to let him try, Mrs. Chip. We know it's mean.
We're real ashamed of ourselves." Irish tested his tongs as he
had been told to do. "But we'd rather be ashamed than good, any
old time."

The Little Doctor giggled behind the Kid's tousled curls, and
reached out a slim hand once more to give Pink's tongs the expert
twist he was trying awkwardly to learn. "I'm sorry for Miguel;
he's got lovely eyes, anyway."

"Yes, ain't he?" Pink looked up briefly from his task. "How's
your leg, Irish? Mine's done."

"Seems to me I'd make a deep border of them corkscrew curls all
around the bottoms, if I was doin' it," said the Countess
peevishly, from the kitchen sink. "If I was that dago I'd murder
the hull outfit; I never did see a body so hectored in my life--
and him not ever ketchin' on. He must be plumb simple-minded."

When the curling was done to the hilarious satisfaction of Irish
and Pink, and, while Pink was dancing in them to show them off,
another entered with mail from town. And, because the mail-
bearer was Andy Green himself, back from a winter's journeyings,
Cal, Happy Jack and Slim followed close behind, talking all at
once, in their joy at beholding the man they loved well and hated
occasionally also. Andy delivered the mail into the hands of the
Little Doctor, pinched the Kid's cheek, and said how he had grown
good-looking as his mother, almost, spoke a cheerful howdy to the
Countess, and turned to shake hands with Pink. It was then that
the honest, gray eyes of him widened with amazement.

"Well, by golly!" gasped Slim, goggling at the chaps of Miguel.

"That there Natiff Son'll just about kill yuh for that," warned
Happy Jack, as mournfully as he might with laughing. "He'll knife
yuh, sure."

Andy, demanding the meaning of it all, learned all about Miguel
Rapponi--from the viewpoint of the Happy Family. At least, he
learned as much as it was politic to tell in the presence of the
Little Doctor; and afterward, while Pink was putting the chaps
back upon the willow, where Miguel had left them, he was told
that they looked to him, Andy Green, for assistance.

"Oh, gosh! You don't want to depend on me, Pink," Andy
expostulated modestly. "I can't think of anything--and, besides,
I've reformed. I don't know as it's any compliment to me, by
gracious--being told soon as I land that I'm expected to lie to a
perfect stranger."

"You come on down to the stable and take a look at his saddle and
bridle," urged Cal. "And wait till you see him smoking and
looking past you, as if you was an ornery little peak that didn't
do nothing but obstruct the scenery. I've seen mean cusses--lots
of 'em; and I've seen men that was stuck on themselves. But I
never--"

"Come outa that 'doby," Pink interrupted, "mud to his eyebrows,
just about. And he knew darned well we headed him in there
deliberate. And when I remarks it's soft going, he says: 'It is,
kinda,'--just like that." Pink managed to imitate the languid
tone of Miguel very well. "Not another word outa him. Didn't even
make him mad! He--"

"Tell him about the parrots, Slim," Cal suggested soberly. But
Slim only turned purple at the memory, and swore.

"Old Patsy sure has got it in for him," Happy Jack observed. "He
asked Patsy if he ever had enchiladas. Patsy won't speak to him
no more. He claims Mig-u-ell insulted him. He told Mig-u-ell--"

"Enchiladas are sure fine eating," said Andy. "I took to 'em like
a she-bear to honey, down in New Mexico this winter. Your Native
Son is solid there, all right."

"Aw, gwan! He ain't solid nowhere but in the head. Maybe you'll
love him to death when yuh see him--chances is you will, if
you've took to eatin' dago grub."

Andy patted Happy Jack reassuringly on the shoulder. "Don't get
excited," he soothed. "I'll put it all over the gentleman, just
to show my heart's in the right place. Just this once, though;
I've reformed. And I've got to have time to size him up. Where do
you keep him when he ain't in the show window?" He swung into
step with Pink. "I'll tell you the truth," he confided
engagingly. "Any man that'll wear chaps like he's got--even
leaving out the extra finish you fellows have given 'em--had
ought to be taught a lesson he'll remember. He sure must be a
tough proposition, if the whole bunch of yuh have had to give him
up. By gracious--"

Copyright (c) 2007. fullstories.net. All rights reserved.